iControl REST $filter processing not HTTP compliant?

I'm trying to get objects over iControl REST using python "requests". The expected method would be something like:

r = requests.session()
r.get('https://tmhost/mgmt/tm/ltm/node', params={'$filter': 'name eq NODENAME'})

This fails, because requests - complying with the HTTP spec - encodes the "$" in the URL as %24, which fails; the LTM responds with:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request

{"code":400,"message":"Query parameter %24filter is invalid.","errorStack":[]}

If I manually send the HTTP request using netcat, without escaping the $, this works OK.

Is there any way to use $filter with an HTTP-compliant library?